26" tire light wide or heavy skinny

I'm looking at getting new tires for my commuter. Since Avocet does not have their
26-1\4 tires I'm looking elsewhere.
The two that I've found are the Specialized 1.5 armadillo Nimbus and the Schwalbe 1.35 Marathon Plus.
The Specialized is wider but and weighs 700g and the Schwalbe is narrower and weighs 830g.
The first questions is: Is this so little it won't really matter
Second: which would give me less rolling resistance?
Third: Am I over looking another tire.
My preference is a 26" X 1.25, lightwieght, puncture protected tire.

1) thats about the weight of an smartphone. should make 0 difference for commuting.

2)the armadillo but not by anything you'd likely notice. the other side is which one will last longer. which i cant answer.

3) theres a good chunk of slicks for 26". i run the Continental Sport Contact in 1.6 i have no complaints but i'll probably go with something with a little more tread next time
(mental thing). if your trying for absolutely the least rubber on the ground then the conti Gatorskins at 1-1/8 might be worth a try. schwalbe has the marathons in 26x1.25 but the seem to be on backorder.

1) thats about the weight of an smartphone. should make 0 difference for commuting.

2)the armadillo but not by anything you'd likely notice. the other side is which one will last longer. which i cant answer.

3) theres a good chunk of slicks for 26". i run the Continental Sport Contact in 1.6 i have no complaints but i'll probably go with something with a little more tread next time
(mental thing). if your trying for absolutely the least rubber on the ground then the conti Gatorskins at 1-1/8 might be worth a try. schwalbe has the marathons in 26x1.25 but the seem to be on backorder.

I saw the 2 skinnies you mention. 1-1\4 is about a narrow as want to go. The roads aren't the smoothest. I can imagine how shook up I'd be by the time i got to work.

Personally I run 700x42 tires on my rigid commuter. This is about 1.6 inch and I find it to be fairly forgiving as long as I keep the pressure around 40-45 PSI. The difference in rolling resistance is likely minimal considering we're only talking about 3mm here.

The rotational inertia due to the additional weight will definitely be more noticeable. The wheel (de)accelerates slower because the wheel carries more energy.

Originally Posted by Slozomby

1) thats about the weight of an smartphone. should make 0 difference for commuting.

The tire goes on the wheel. A difference of 100g is definitely noticeable.

I don't think it matters much with commuting. It's not like I'm going to win a town line sprint on my way to school. I usually just stick whatever tire I can cadge off my friends who are more precious than me about their commute bikes on mine.

Wider tires are supposed to give a bit less rolling resistance. See Schwalbe's studies. And read some reviews of the Marathon. Supposed to wear like iron and roll like ass. I thought the Armadillo I had on my last commuter was fine. It did outlast the bike... Since I'm fond of Continental, I'd be quite tempted by the GatorSkin mentioned above.

Those are some heavy tires. I've got two sets of Forte Metro-K's on different commuters (26in and 700c). They weigh half that and roll just fine at 90 psi. They're kevlar lined and I've never had a puncture flat, but I have pinch flatted when I let the pressure get low. They are almost always on sale at performance bike.

"A difference of 100g is definitely noticeable." "That much weight makes a difference"

yall's definition of commuting and mine must be different. 100g per tire is not going to prevent me from getting back and forth to work. nor does it bother me if it takes an extra minute to get there.

Who said it woul?

My guess is that you're not stopping every 300 ft either meaning you do not have to spin up that extra 100g every 20 or 30 seconds. Extra 100g on the wheels is far more noticeable than adding additional 100g on anything that doesn't spin.

I think I probably would notice 100g if it was added or subtracted to my commuter's wheels and I rode it with the different tires back-to-back. If I didn't do back-to-back, since I usually have some crap with me anyway, I don't know if I'd notice, or maybe I'd think something was off, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

There's a difference between something being noticeable and something mattering, however.